For my 10’s, I’ve decided that one post isn’t enough. Each Tuesday after I write about one, I’m going to do an additional post pertaining to the game or series I covered. Most of these are going to be lists, rankings, etc. As always, these are subjective, unscientific and literally just one guy’s opinion. I do plan on going back and doing one for the two I already covered (Doom and Madden), but for now we are going to stick with FF VII.
I am going to rank the party members based on usefulness, power level and just generally how good they are. This has nothing to do with how well written they are, how cool they are, etc. its strictly about their combat prowess. I am also going to be considering how they perform for the whole playthrough, not just maxed out. That’s a whole different discussion. Anyway, without further adieu:
9 - Cait Sith - In a lot of Final Fantasy games, characters that are obnoxious or unlikeable actually turn out to be useful party members. That isn’t the case here. Cait Sith sucks, plain and simple. His limit breaks are lousy, he only has two and his ultimate is Slots. I always find slot attacks in FF games to be terrible. Sure, you COULD get a one hit kill on any enemy (even a boss), but you are just as likely to kill yourself. By the time you hit the OHK roll on Cait Sith’s slots, you could have cast Knights of the Round enough times to kill any enemy 10 times over. His stats are also pretty bad, and his ultimate weapon is tied for the weakest of all the characters. All the ultimate weapons deal extra damage based on a certain stat, and for Cait, its how much HP he has relative to his max HP. Not bad, but the others have much easier stats to manipulate.
8 - Vincent - Vincent is a fan favorite, he’s so well liked that they gave him his own spinoff game (stay tuned for that). He has a cool design, an interesting personality and a memorable backstory. Unfortunately, he just isn’t very good. His stats are a little lackluster for someone that trends as a magic user. But the real killer is his limit breaks. He has four, each of which transform him into a monster. The problem is that you lose control over him after he transforms. In a three man party, its a major issue to lose complete control of a party member. As a magic user, there is a good chance he is going to be your healer, and you definitely can’t give up control of your healer. It would be one thing is the transformations offered some incredible ability, but even his ultimate Chaos doesn’t really do all that much. It’s a shame too, because his ultimate weapon is one of the stronger ones. The Death Penalty deals more damage depending on how many enemies Vincent has killed throughout the game, which can be very powerful.
7 - Aerith - It’s way more difficult to have a character completely dedicated to support when you only have a three person party. Aerith has great magic stats, but she can’t contribute offensively with her limit breaks like the other magic based characters can. Besides, the materia system allows you to manipulate character stats more than other games in the series. That said, her limit breaks are excellent. Her ultimate, Great Gospel, fully heals the party and makes them invincible for a few turns. Only one of her seven is truly terrible, but support and healing limits just aren’t that useful here. Her ultimate weapon is the Princess Guard, which deals more damage if other members of the party are knocked out. Who wants that?
6 - Tifa - Statistically, Tifa is a pretty solid character. She is the first physical attacker we have on the list, electing to use only her fists in battle. Her limit breaks function a little differently than the others. As she learns new ones, they are added to a combination of up to 7 hits. The only issue here is you can’t choose which enemy to target, which can be a major problem against stronger mobs or bosses with multiple targets. It also requires some slots nonsense, so certain attacks can miss, which sucks. Her ultimate weapon, the Premium Heart, gets stronger as her limit gauge fills, which is okay, but kind of counter productive. As soon as your limit break gauge is full, you generally want to use it right away.
5 - Red XIII - The party’s magically inclined talking pupper is at the middle of the pack. Honestly, he and Tifa could probably be swapped, they are relatively close. Her ultimate weapon and physical stats are better, while Red’s limit skills are better. Also, I find it weird that both of them have a lot of weapons with non-connected materia slots. That’s way more an issue for Red, as his base stats trend more towards magic. His ultimate limit break, Cosmos Memory, is underwhelming. It can hit all targets, but its a single hit attack and those generally aren’t that effective against bosses late in the game. When he’s maxed, his lv 2 limit break Stardust Ray and lv 3 limit Earthrave are actually stronger, as they are multi hit. His ultimate weapon, the Limited Moon, powers up based on how full his MP is. That’s a bit of a problem, since Red is probably going to be your chief spellcaster if you are using him.
4 - Yuffie - Yuffie has generally weak base stats, but she excels in the more difficult to increase categories like dexterity and luck. When I played through the game as a kid I always thought she was horrible, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yuffie has an excellent set of limit skills and probably the second most powerful ultimate weapon. Her ultimate limit break, All Creation, is nearly identical to Red XIII’s (though a bit stronger), and as such is underwhelming. However, she has some lower level limit skills that are multi hit, including lv 2 Bloodfest and lv 3 Doom of the Living, which hits a staggering 15 times. Her ultimate weapon is the Conformer, which scales damage based on the level of the enemy you are fighting. That’s awesome late in the game, since obviously that’s when you are going to be fighting the strongest enemies. It also has the added bonus when using the Morph materia, which can net you some great items.
3 - Cid - Everyone’s favorite sailor mouthed pilot comes in near the top of the list, almost solely on the back of his limit breaks. He has pretty average base stats across the board, leaning slightly more towards the physical side. His ultimate weapon, the Venus Gospel, is a bit underwhelming as well. It has the same damage multiplier as Red XIII’s, although its less of a problem with Cid as he is more likely to have low MP totals. But his limit breaks are the best in the game, he doesn’t have a single one that’s useless. His ultimate limit break, Highwind, could very well be the most powerful attack in the game as it hits 18 times. It is also a lot easier to max out its damage than it is for the other skill with that many hits.
2 - Barrett - I almost had to put him on top. He is a beastly physical attacker who also had incredibly high defense. That’s great, but its compounded by the fact that most of his weapons are long range. That means you can stick him in the back row and he will still deal huge chunks of damage while taking even less. His limit breaks are outstanding, though his set isn’t as complete as Cids. His Ultimate, Catastrophe, hits 10 times and its very, very easy to get max damage on every hit. However, his lv 3 limit break Ungarmax (it’s supposed to be Anger Max, yay translation!) might could be the single most powerful attack in the game. It’s difficult to max out, but hits more times than any attack. It can be powered up further with the overflow glitch, if you’re into that sort of thing. His ultimate weapon, Missing Score, is easily the most powerful in the game. It’s damage scales based on the AP of materia attached to it. So just load it up with a bunch of mastered stuff, press attack and watch enemies disappear.
1 - Cloud - Were you expecting someone else? Not going to lie, this was closer than I thought it would be. It was certainly closer than you would see in most Final Fantasy games, usually the main protagonist is the strongest character. His Ultimate Weapon, simply called Ultimate Weapon, deals more damage based on how much HP he has. That’s not great, though its still generally a powerful weapon. But his base stats are easily the best of any of the characters, he is the most versatile across the board. His limit breaks are all amazing, again, none of them are completely useless. His ultimate limit break is Omnislash, which provides double digit hits and has a 100% critical hit rate. In any normal playthrough (i.e. just playing the game and not trying to max your characters out) this is probably going to be the most powerful attack, even more so than Knights of the Round.
I am going to rank the party members based on usefulness, power level and just generally how good they are. This has nothing to do with how well written they are, how cool they are, etc. its strictly about their combat prowess. I am also going to be considering how they perform for the whole playthrough, not just maxed out. That’s a whole different discussion. Anyway, without further adieu:
9 - Cait Sith - In a lot of Final Fantasy games, characters that are obnoxious or unlikeable actually turn out to be useful party members. That isn’t the case here. Cait Sith sucks, plain and simple. His limit breaks are lousy, he only has two and his ultimate is Slots. I always find slot attacks in FF games to be terrible. Sure, you COULD get a one hit kill on any enemy (even a boss), but you are just as likely to kill yourself. By the time you hit the OHK roll on Cait Sith’s slots, you could have cast Knights of the Round enough times to kill any enemy 10 times over. His stats are also pretty bad, and his ultimate weapon is tied for the weakest of all the characters. All the ultimate weapons deal extra damage based on a certain stat, and for Cait, its how much HP he has relative to his max HP. Not bad, but the others have much easier stats to manipulate.
8 - Vincent - Vincent is a fan favorite, he’s so well liked that they gave him his own spinoff game (stay tuned for that). He has a cool design, an interesting personality and a memorable backstory. Unfortunately, he just isn’t very good. His stats are a little lackluster for someone that trends as a magic user. But the real killer is his limit breaks. He has four, each of which transform him into a monster. The problem is that you lose control over him after he transforms. In a three man party, its a major issue to lose complete control of a party member. As a magic user, there is a good chance he is going to be your healer, and you definitely can’t give up control of your healer. It would be one thing is the transformations offered some incredible ability, but even his ultimate Chaos doesn’t really do all that much. It’s a shame too, because his ultimate weapon is one of the stronger ones. The Death Penalty deals more damage depending on how many enemies Vincent has killed throughout the game, which can be very powerful.
7 - Aerith - It’s way more difficult to have a character completely dedicated to support when you only have a three person party. Aerith has great magic stats, but she can’t contribute offensively with her limit breaks like the other magic based characters can. Besides, the materia system allows you to manipulate character stats more than other games in the series. That said, her limit breaks are excellent. Her ultimate, Great Gospel, fully heals the party and makes them invincible for a few turns. Only one of her seven is truly terrible, but support and healing limits just aren’t that useful here. Her ultimate weapon is the Princess Guard, which deals more damage if other members of the party are knocked out. Who wants that?
6 - Tifa - Statistically, Tifa is a pretty solid character. She is the first physical attacker we have on the list, electing to use only her fists in battle. Her limit breaks function a little differently than the others. As she learns new ones, they are added to a combination of up to 7 hits. The only issue here is you can’t choose which enemy to target, which can be a major problem against stronger mobs or bosses with multiple targets. It also requires some slots nonsense, so certain attacks can miss, which sucks. Her ultimate weapon, the Premium Heart, gets stronger as her limit gauge fills, which is okay, but kind of counter productive. As soon as your limit break gauge is full, you generally want to use it right away.
5 - Red XIII - The party’s magically inclined talking pupper is at the middle of the pack. Honestly, he and Tifa could probably be swapped, they are relatively close. Her ultimate weapon and physical stats are better, while Red’s limit skills are better. Also, I find it weird that both of them have a lot of weapons with non-connected materia slots. That’s way more an issue for Red, as his base stats trend more towards magic. His ultimate limit break, Cosmos Memory, is underwhelming. It can hit all targets, but its a single hit attack and those generally aren’t that effective against bosses late in the game. When he’s maxed, his lv 2 limit break Stardust Ray and lv 3 limit Earthrave are actually stronger, as they are multi hit. His ultimate weapon, the Limited Moon, powers up based on how full his MP is. That’s a bit of a problem, since Red is probably going to be your chief spellcaster if you are using him.
4 - Yuffie - Yuffie has generally weak base stats, but she excels in the more difficult to increase categories like dexterity and luck. When I played through the game as a kid I always thought she was horrible, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yuffie has an excellent set of limit skills and probably the second most powerful ultimate weapon. Her ultimate limit break, All Creation, is nearly identical to Red XIII’s (though a bit stronger), and as such is underwhelming. However, she has some lower level limit skills that are multi hit, including lv 2 Bloodfest and lv 3 Doom of the Living, which hits a staggering 15 times. Her ultimate weapon is the Conformer, which scales damage based on the level of the enemy you are fighting. That’s awesome late in the game, since obviously that’s when you are going to be fighting the strongest enemies. It also has the added bonus when using the Morph materia, which can net you some great items.
3 - Cid - Everyone’s favorite sailor mouthed pilot comes in near the top of the list, almost solely on the back of his limit breaks. He has pretty average base stats across the board, leaning slightly more towards the physical side. His ultimate weapon, the Venus Gospel, is a bit underwhelming as well. It has the same damage multiplier as Red XIII’s, although its less of a problem with Cid as he is more likely to have low MP totals. But his limit breaks are the best in the game, he doesn’t have a single one that’s useless. His ultimate limit break, Highwind, could very well be the most powerful attack in the game as it hits 18 times. It is also a lot easier to max out its damage than it is for the other skill with that many hits.
2 - Barrett - I almost had to put him on top. He is a beastly physical attacker who also had incredibly high defense. That’s great, but its compounded by the fact that most of his weapons are long range. That means you can stick him in the back row and he will still deal huge chunks of damage while taking even less. His limit breaks are outstanding, though his set isn’t as complete as Cids. His Ultimate, Catastrophe, hits 10 times and its very, very easy to get max damage on every hit. However, his lv 3 limit break Ungarmax (it’s supposed to be Anger Max, yay translation!) might could be the single most powerful attack in the game. It’s difficult to max out, but hits more times than any attack. It can be powered up further with the overflow glitch, if you’re into that sort of thing. His ultimate weapon, Missing Score, is easily the most powerful in the game. It’s damage scales based on the AP of materia attached to it. So just load it up with a bunch of mastered stuff, press attack and watch enemies disappear.
1 - Cloud - Were you expecting someone else? Not going to lie, this was closer than I thought it would be. It was certainly closer than you would see in most Final Fantasy games, usually the main protagonist is the strongest character. His Ultimate Weapon, simply called Ultimate Weapon, deals more damage based on how much HP he has. That’s not great, though its still generally a powerful weapon. But his base stats are easily the best of any of the characters, he is the most versatile across the board. His limit breaks are all amazing, again, none of them are completely useless. His ultimate limit break is Omnislash, which provides double digit hits and has a 100% critical hit rate. In any normal playthrough (i.e. just playing the game and not trying to max your characters out) this is probably going to be the most powerful attack, even more so than Knights of the Round.
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