Caution: There are many spoilers in this article.

Final Fantasy is a series that doesn’t really need an introduction as it speaks for itself quite well.

But for every entourage of cast members in the games, there’s always the filler – the people who are utterly useless and bring nothing but shame and sadness to the table. These are the characters that could have used a bit more development before making it to the final project. Characters’ uselessness is based on two categories: how useless they are to the story and how useless they are in combat, as many characters are either one or the other.

Quina – Final Fantasy 9

Quina is a Qu, a creature of indeterminable gender, who only provides minimal support. But as far as story goes, that’s about all s/he does. There’s the comical effect once in a while, but as far as importance, Quina has practically none. It’s a shame, because the devour ability allows for the acquiring of some fantastic moves that makes Quina a powerhouse in battle.

Amarant – Final Fantasy 9

Amarant, despite being pretty useful in combat, literally joins the gang because he has nothing better to do. An assassin sent to kill the cast, Amarant is offered a part on the team once he is beaten. He goes through a little character development in which he learns not to be so much of a jerk. Little is learned of his past and there’s nothing that redeeming about his lone wolf persona. RPG fans enjoy connecting with the characters and learning about them, not dealing with emotionless drones.

Irvine – Final Fantasy 8

Irvine’s one job is to kill the sorceress Edea – and he fails miserably. Aside from reminding the party that they all used to be best friends after suffering long-term memory loss, Irvine doesn’t have much purpose. Considering that all characters are customized based on summons and magic equipped qualities, no character from the game is truly unique with the exception of limit breaks. However, players have to spend time and resources getting ammo for his limit break. Considering everyone else has a much better limit break, there isn’t much reason to pick him for a place on the main team.

Vaan – Final Fantasy 12

Vaan is a street orphan in Rabanastre who blames the empire for the death of his brother two years prior to the game. Through his adventures, he meets up with a team and saves the world from the tyrannical Vayne as well as learns how not to shift the blame to everything else. That’s great and all, but Vaan doesn’t have anything on the other cast members, who actually do something useful. Vaan could practically be removed from the main story and everything would still be fine in the end. His personality is also something reminiscent of melted butter, but that’s just icing on the cake.

Edward – Final Fantasy 4

Edward is the cowardly prince of Damcyan who offers very little in terms of story and combat. He provides a couple moments where he helps the party survive, but the player has to deal with his constant whining throughout most of the game. Edward isn’t that great in battle either until he reaches around level 70, where his stats rise quite well. But by the time that marker is reached, players can be finished with the final boss without a problem. And by the time the player is allowed to choose party members, there’s no reason to have him on the team, especially with more powerful allies available.

Hope – Final Fantasy 13

Yes, Hope does actually provide much in terms of story and combat, but to call him annoying is an understatement. Sure, he loses his mother early in the game, but putting up with emotional teenagers in high school, complaining that life sucks and that there’s no reason to go on was difficult enough. No one wants to pay money to play the life of a kid who seems to do it twice as much. Thankfully there weren’t any Hot Topics in FF13.

Yuffie – Final Fantasy 7

Yuffie is an optional character in the game, meaning she has no significance on the main story. Her only role is that through an optional story, she literally steals all of the materia (magic) from the cast, and they have to go track her down to get it back. The side-quest does yield some nice weapons and materia, but considering the main cast is enough to get the job done and save the world from Sephiroth, having an optional character who steals everything is a low blow.

Gau – Final Fantasy 6

Gau is a kid that is found in the wilds, and literally has no reason to join the party, nor a real positive outcome on the plot. His Rage moves take time to learn, and his attacks are mimic those of the enemy the party is fighting, which means that there is no command to simply attack. Despite high stats, having a more controllable character seems to be a better choice.

Paine – Final Fantasy 10-2

The third main character of this sequel is not an exercise on subtlety. She dresses entirely in black, has a lone wolf personality, goes through a change where she opens up and is nicer to the cast, and her name is … Paine. How lame can a character get? Apparently a cookie-cutter goth girl is perfectly acceptable in terms of characters. Considering Lulu was done quite well in the original, it leaves it to be wondered how Paine was messed up so badly.

The list is extensive and will vary from person to person, but all things considered, these characters are at least some of the weakest developed of the bunch, if not the most useless.

Tim Jones is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].